Category Archives: Breviary

Breviary Update 1.5

Thanks to those of you who tried your iOS devices (and Windows 8 devices) against my attempted solution. Needless to say, it failed the test… Interestingly, while the solution worked on my Kindle Fire, I likewise failed to get a satisfactory result on my Android phone.

I’m looking into some of the newer browser capabilities/technologies that came along with the HTML5 standard and, after reading and playing a little with the cache capability, I’ve discovered that what I’m looking for is actually the local storage function. Again, it’s a fairly new technology and I don’t know how widely it’s implemented. However, I think there’s a good chance that most mobile devices should be able to handle it.

I was trying to figure out how to make it work with my code and came to the realization that I’m using a lot of server-side code to create client-side implementations. Not the best way to go… As a result, I need to retool several functions and transform them from (server-side) PHP into (client-side) JavaScript. Luckily, the syntax between the two is similar enough that this shouldn’t be too difficult.

So—I’ll have another test for you modern mobile users in a little bit, that (hopefully) will be more successful than the last!

[Update: Actually, before I recode everything, let’s see if this will do what I hope it will… iOS/mobile users, please try the “Save your Preferences” button at the bottom of this page: http://stbedeproductions.com/breviary/test/combined_preferences.php

There should be a pop-up mentioning local storage and perhaps a string with gibberish in it. I’ll fix the gibberish if this is actually going to work… Thanks again!]

Breviary Update

Ok—so I’ve been working all this past week to get the preferences re-coded for the breviary, and I think I’ve finally accomplished most of what I’ve set out to do. There are a few other things I’d like to add, but this is what we have for the moment…

There have been a variety of preference issues; most notable, iDevices have had real problems setting cookies. I’m testing a solution that uses JavaScript rather than PHP to set the cookies that I believe should be much more effective.

I’ve tested it on my laptop and on my Kindle and it works fine. However, lacking an iDevice, I can’t check it on them… If someone who does have an iDevice would like to help, I’ll provide the basic steps. I’ll warn you, though, doing this will alter the cookie and will change your settings over to the new settings in ways that won’t play well with the old ones. On the flip side, if this works, everything will shift over to the new settings and that won’t be an issue…

The steps are simple:

  1.  Go to this url (it’s my test space): http://stbedeproductions.com/breviary/test/combined_preferences.php
  2. Arrange your preferences however you like them. The sections slide for ease of use.
  3. At the bottom of the page is the “Save your Preferences” button. Click it when you’re done.
  4. When you click it, it should give you a long string of numbers, then tell you your preferences have been saved. Click “ok.”
  5. Then, in the footer under the button is a link entitled “pray the breviary.” Click the link.
  6. When the regular opening page loads, click the “Pray the Office” button under the “Use your default settings…” section.
  7. See if it worked like it ought to.
  8. Leave me a comment as to how it went.

That’s it—thanks in advance!

Breviary Improvements

Ok—I’ve been letting this one linger for far too long… It’s time to do some serious changes around the breviary, in particular with the way that it handles preferences. Every since I shifted from a Windows server to a Linux server the preferences have been buggy or, perhaps more likely, the shift revealed some underlying flaws. Either way, the time has come to get this fixed once and for all.

One of the reasons this has lingered, of course, is that work that pays takes precedence over breviary tinkering which, though fun and instructive and useful, doesn’t pay the bills. If you use the breviary and feel moved to help, a <a href=”http://www.stbedeproductions.com/breviary/donate.php“>modest donation</a> will help defray the functional cost.

So—expect to see some changes! I wouldn’t be surprised if a few bugs don’t pop up as well in the process, and for those I ask your indulgence in advance…

Big Breviary Announcement!

I’m happy to announce a collaboration between the St Bede’s Breviary and Forward Movement! Fr. Scott Gunn, the new Executive Director of Forward Movement, has a vision to bring Forward Movement further into the digital age; using a cut-down version of the breviary’s code base, we’re working on both a new web site and a mobile app that will incorporate both the Daily Office and Forward Day-by-Day among other things.

I’ve consistently received two questions since the launch of the breviary—1) when will there be an iPhone/iPad app and 2) when will there be a printed version. I can now answer the first! There are a number of moving parts here, so we’re currently projecting a ship date in the 1st quarter of 2012.

Needless to say—I’ll keep you updated!

For those of you with mobile devices who enjoy the breviary, you might like to try this out as an intermediary step as development continues: a mobile-optimized version of the breviary. (Due to spotty implementation of the xhtml+mp, I don’t recommend trying to use it with a desktop browser…)

Offices of the Dead for All Souls

After more delay than I intended, I finally have some votive offices for the dead up at the breviary in time for All Souls. Following the discussion here on kinds of votive offices, these are replacement offices—offices intended to be said in place of (rather than supplemental to) the regular morning and evening offices.

The cookies that hold preferences for the regular offices are still in effect here particularly in regard to antiphons; elements for the BVM are not included in these offices.

So, here they are:

The Office for the Dead: Morning Prayer

The Office for the Dead: Evening Prayer

Breviary Back Up

I’d taken down the breviary for a few days to put in some fixes and patches. It’s back up now. It’s also got a new blog. Something about the old blog didn’t feel right and I didn’t use it much.

So—there’s a new one which is located here.

Look for more of my office related material to be going up over there, particularly items of a practical nature. Some of the heavier research stuff like the current Office lectionary series will probably remain here.

Holy Week Offices

After a year and a half, I still consider the breviary to be in beta because of issues like this morning—a missing collect and, in some cases, missing lessons. They’re fixed now and part of today’s events include a check through the rest of Holy Week to make sure everything’s functioning properly.

Exactly how the Holy Week and Triduum Offices are to be celebrated is a favorite topic among Anglican armchair liturgists; the various Books of Common Prayer give no indication of changes during this time but catholic practices give a variety of options with the Roman variations being predominate but I’m sure we can find some divergences even from that among regional uses (like the 24 candles of the Sarum tenebrae hearse as opposed to the more pedestrian 15 of Roman practice). I did write a bit about this last year which covers some of the various points to weigh.

Bottom line at the breviary is this: the breviary keeps the gloria patris for the beginning of Holy Week, but gives reduced offices for Triduum. The BSG version, however, does not use reduced offices but presents a full, regular, prayer book office. This probably is something that I should build into the preferences but haven’t had the time to do.

New Breviary URLs

The latest work at the breviary has not been primarily code changes, but has been the addition of some new dedicated pages. The breviary was designed to make pray the office both flexible and easy, and over it’s evolution, I’ve been making progress in both of these directions (more flexible and easier…).

I started with the date/time of day/option-sets entry screen.

Eventually, I made the move to cookies as a means of capturing specific options. (And I do need to do some work to make sure all of the options are functioning properly in cookie form…)

One of the issues I’ve faced from the beginning is the need for a static url which will get folks right down to the business of praying. An entry page was the only way in for two reasons—1) you had to make your choices somewhere, and 2) you needed to indicate what office you wanted to do. Cookies made the first one disappear, and—at the prodding of some friends—I’ve coded a page to by-pass the second as well. It functions by using javascript to find the timestamp on your computer (the client), then passes that value to my server-side PHP code. (So—if you have javascript disabled, this won’t work for you.) This allows me to present a single static url so that, if you already have a breviary cookie/set of preferences saved, all you have to do is jump to this url and the Office as you like it, appropriate to your time of day ought to appear.

Here’s the url: http://www.stbedeproductions.com/breviary/office.php

I’m still working out the exact times for changes between the offices so there may be continued tweaks with that part of it.

In related news, I have created a dedicated page for the Brotherhood of St Gregory—the ones who provided the impetus for this change, in fact—one of our Anglican religious communities bound by rule to pray the offices, according to their set preferences: a straight-forward Rite II with the monthly psalm cycle. This page requires no cookies at all and should work for anyone if this is the kind of office you desire: http://www.stbedeproductions.com/breviary/office_selectionBSG.php

For those interested, I’m also in conversations with Fr. John-Julian concerning a similar page for the Order of Julian of Norwich which should be up and running before too long.

So, my thanks to the Brotherhood for kindling a fire under me to get this work done, and I hope these new pages provide all of you with an even simpler way to experience the offices.